Around 50,000 personnel will fan across the 4,000 hectares of land that will house millions of pilgrims who will gather in Prayagraj over the next 45 days for the Mahakumbh, as the government focuses on ensuring security and avert stampede-like disasters for the mega congregation.
“For such a big force of police personnel from state and central agencies, as many as three police lines, three traffic police lines, three women police lines and one mounted police line have been made in Prayagraj,” said a senior police official associated with Mahakumbh security preparations.
He said the list of security personnel include 27 companies of PAC, 52 CAPF, 10 flood relief PAC, 15 national disaster response force (NDRF) companies, six state disaster response force (SDRF) companies, three ATS teams, 30 anti-sabotage checking teams, four anti-mines squads, 13 bomb detection and disposal squad (BDDS), 12 sniper teams, 30 spotters and four NSG teams.
He further stated that at least 56 police stations with around 155 police outposts have been set up in Mahakumbh region, along with 140 watch towers, and 10 pink booths for women’s safety.
Over 350 million visitors are expected to attend the event. Controlling the movement of attendees is crucial to avoid overcrowding and stampede-like situations. In the previous edition of Kumbh in 2013, more than 40 people died in a stampede that broke out at the Prayagraj railway station.
“With the potential risks posed by temporary structures, electrical setups, and cooking areas, the fire department has deployed modern technologies and a specialised team to safeguard the event from fire hazards,” said director general (fire services), Avinash Chandra.
As many as 50 fire stations, 15 fire substations and 40 fire watch towers have been set up. “There will be 80 firefighting motorbikes that will be fitted with water mist systems and compressed air and foam (CAF), 125 quick response vehicles (QRVs), 120 large size water tenders, six foam tenders to ensure the safety of millions of devotees and tourists,” said Pramod Sharma, the chief fire officer of the Mahakumbh area.
Crowd monitoring is a priority. As many as 2,700 CCTV cameras are operating in the city and the Mahakumbh area. Many of these cameras have capabilities such as facial recognition automatic scanning of vehicle registration number plates. Parameters have been fed in them to analyse give alerts regarding crowd density, crowd movement, crowd flow, barricade jumping, fire and smoke alerts.
The movement of vehicles and pilgrims on foot from seven routes to the Mahakumbh area and nine railway stations of Prayagraj as well as air passengers via airport has been charted, ensuring different paths for each direction. Diversion Plans and contingency schemes have been devised for easy movement of traffic and pilgrims as well as to avoid overcrowding, Prayagraj additional director general (ADG) Bhanu Bhaskar said.
“The cyber cell of Prayagraj police commissionerate will be fully devoted to cyber crimes related to the event. Apart from this, cyber threats are being monitored by the cyber wing of the state police under additional director general (ADG), cyber crime, Binod Kumar Singh as well as the special task force (STF),” said Uttar Pradesh director general of police (DGP) Prashant Kumar. “We have also roped in agencies like the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN), which is the national nodal agency to deal with cyber security incidents, and the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C).” The I4C is an initiative of the ministry of home affairs to deal with cyber crime in the country.
Authorities have pressed into service 2,700 CCTV cameras, tethered drones at strategic points, and three anti-drone teams. “We have a large contingent of ‘Jal Police’ (water police) with special officers as well as naval commandos for river route safety. A number of motorboats, 12 kilometers of deep-water barricading, river lines, jetties, underwater drones, sonar, and specialist divers will also be deployed in the event,” DGP Kumar said.
Ten digital Lost and Found centres and 54 Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for emergencies such as fire, stampedes, drowning, CBRN (chemical biological radiological and nuclear) accidents/attacks etc will be operational soon. “No VIPs will be allowed to enter the Mahakumbh area on four wheelers. Everybody will have to walk for over one kilometre on normal days but must walk for around three kilometers on important dates,” said Mahakumbh superintendent of police (SP) Rajesh Dwivedi. Arrangements have been made for parking of more than 500,000 vehicles at 102 spots.